The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1887-04-29
A PIONEER GHOST.

1t had for years been a fayorite idea
with Roswell (Roila, as his boyhood
name was) to restore an early a pio-
~neer-sugar camp. A considerahleb bit
OF the primitive wood had been pre-
served, quite enough to hide the boil
ing works. The kettles were hung by
beech trummels, on q lug pOle-there
were the store, trough, the sap yoke
and buckets, the small, rather too
neat cabin. Right about headquar-
ters were the ak made sap troughs-all
as in the primitive times.
q The day-the last of two or three
successive u bright days, indicating
the wane of the sugar season, and the
kindling Of the year-had been all
that a single day could we'll be.
1t was past, the girls were gone, and
night was making it's approach seen
and felt in the ancient wood, helping
the cherished illusions-the years turn
ed back, the grand forest restored, the
silent group in the deepening twilight
were boys again, in the depth OF the
woods. The girls were gone. 1t had
been q great day for them, old girls,
yet for the day, girls. They have ram
bled a little heavy-footed and slow,
through the woods, where the earlier
flowers of the spring began to show
themselves-She liverworts, blood
roots, the spray-like ground nuts, and
many budded spring beauty. In the
favored place a few real leeks stabbed
up. There had been a butterfly
seen Hopping among the trees, lighting
on the sap sprouts, and many honey
bees, robins and blue birds were there,
hatch-winter residents these last; all
these had been noted-talked over
and the girls were gone. Ann, her
younger sister Helen, and mi of the
Dams went with them. So Elizabeth
and Minerva went with Elvira for the
night. Elderly girls-all called such
for the time.
The boys, Roosevelt, Monroe, anoth-
err Dan, Capt. John, of the hundred
day company, William and Theo-
these last came down from Michigan;
stood rather pensively about the rude
furnace and boiling copper kettles,
conveIsing in subdued voices, in the
~perceptible twilight under the print
tive trees. The fire was growing con
spicuous, and it's sparks visible. A
colony of frogs from the swale below
were making themselves heard, among
which were the piercing notes Of a few
hylodes, which usually precede the
croakers. eve shan'tmake any more
good sugar" said Monroe, inhis chest
tones.
s'aThese are the first of them" said
Dan. ''They will be frozen up three
times. No good sugar after the Sec
ond is the old rule.
Then followed some discussion of
the relations of frogs to the condi-
tions favorable to sugar making. The
Gated the advanced the season.
There was an old time incident OF
the neighborhood, which though now
forgotten, occurred since the Johnson
boys went to Michigan, and which r.
had promised to ten them Of after the
girls left, and they now claimed a per-
formance.
you know / can't tell q story, and
this is not a story and has no come
out of any sort" was his hesitating
preliminary. He was no great talker
at the best. ssThat is the rule now
said Dan, who remained. "a man be-
gins anywhere in the current OF every
day lie, takes a commonplace person
or two and sticks to them for a year
or so. tells usually what they donStdo
and the reason or no reason Why, and
drops them. AS yours is all about a
ghost"
"a ghost that is not a ghost" put
ia the proposed narrator.
who haunted an old barn thirty
by fortY'
stOrdidn,t.n interiected Monroe.
COR didn't accepted Dan, 1T will
run in the line OF the present school
exactly"
There was . pause Of a moment,